


A Frozen Night In June

by geckoholic



Series: author's favorites [28]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, references to childhood abuse, references to violent assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 01:46:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1208251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>She tried to explain it so many times, tried to give words to what she feels, make people understand why she can't move on and be the person she was before. It's exhausting. But she doesn't have to explain anything to Isaac.</em> - Lydia was main cheerleader and on the road to an Ivy League college before Peter Hale abducted her and left her for dead. Isaac dropped out of school when his Dad died, now he's working in a café to stay afloat. Not really a coffeeshop AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Frozen Night In June

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Walkingfelony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walkingfelony/gifts).



> The prompt was “Barista/owner meets customer at coffee shop” which this, uh, strayed from quite a bit, but it's in there? 
> 
> Warriorpuddle read this over. Thank you, BB! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine. 
> 
> Title is from "Hurricane" by Oceanship.

Lydia wakes up at the crack of dawn, after maybe three or four hours of sleep, annoyed by the soft snoring from the other side of the bed. Which isn't Isaac’s fault; at this time of the morning, she'd be annoyed by a choir of angels singing in her bedroom. Well. Isaac's bedroom, but since she hasn't spent a night at home in months, she can probably call it hers at this point. 

Some days, she isn't even sure why she's here, why she doesn't just stop. Isaac and her are little more than a train wreck waiting to happen. They're not good for each other, can't be, both too wrapped up in their own agony and serving as a constant reminder of just that. 

She yawns, blinks to get used to the darkness. Glancing at the alarm clock on the beside table tells her that it's barely 6 AM. She closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath. At least it wasn't a nightmare that woke her this time. Small mercies. That happens more often than she'd care to admit: one of them screaming the other awake. It's not always dramatic; sometimes it's little more than a startled gasp that rouses the other one because, despite it all, they're kindred spirits and sensitive to distress so similar to their own. 

On second thought, maybe that's exactly it. She tried to explain it so many times, tried to give words to what she feels, make people understand why she can't move on and be the person she was before. It's exhausting. But she doesn't have to explain anything to Isaac. 

He stirs when she disentangles herself, nuzzles the pillow and sighs before drifting back off, and it makes her heart ache with something she can't identify. It's not love, she's pretty sure. She's been in love before, and this... That's not what this is. But it's enough to make her crawl back into bed after she’s peed and brushed her teeth, cuddle up close while she lets the street noise outside lull her back to sleep. 

 

***

 

He kisses her awake. Not in the creepy way, waking up with someone else's mouth shoved onto hers, slobbering, stealing her breath. He knows that'd make her run and never come back. No, he strokes the side of her face first, forehead pressed to its side, waits until she's aware enough to turn his way before he closes in and brings their lips together. 

All the things they do with each other, in the dark or in broad daylight, but this might be her favorite. 

Sometimes his capacity for gentleness surprises her, in contrast to all the violence she knows he's experienced. She wonders who taught him to love that way – it certainly wasn't his father. It must've happened earlier, when his mother and his brother were still alive. She wonders what Isaac would be like, today, if they hadn't been taken from him, replaced by the blind anger of a man who didn't know how to deal with that loss any other way than lashing out at the only family member he had left. That Isaac wouldn't be here, with her, though. 

They don't talk much. It's his place, but he's the one who's got a schedule, a job to go to, and so he's the one who leaves the bed first. She's got a key – what an awkward kind of dance that conversation was – and takes a quick shower before she drives him to the cafe. It's where they met. Well, no, technically they met at school, before she got attacked, way before Issac's father died and he dropped out, but their paths never crossed there. Tragedy is what brought them together, much later. 

She sits in the same booth every day, in the back, but with a perfect line of sight towards to counter. He'll send her a conspiratorial little smirk every now and then. They're not a couple in public. No displays of affection, no lovey-dovey glances, no hand-holding. It was her decision. She knows he doesn't understand, is maybe a little hurt by it, but he goes along with it. He doesn't go any further than these smirks, or briefly touching her hand when he brings her another cappuccino. 

She leaves before lunch time, because she knows that her mother will always set the table for two. Even though she never asks were Lydia spends the night, not anymore, she insists on that, and Lydia doesn't have the heart to disappoint her. It's funny – she blew her chance to go to an Ivy League college, she spends her days lingering around in the coffee shop or in the park or at Isaac's, never even trying to find a job, but not showing up for lunch, that's what feels like too much. Upsetting the balance. Going too far. The one disappointment that couldn't be forgiven. 

Her mother isn't a great cook. Most days it's sandwiches or salad, and even those taste horrible half of the time. But that's not the point. 

As always, she smiles with palpable relief when Lydia saunters through the door. “Hello, baby. How was your day?”

“The usual,” Lydia replies, well aware that her mother doesn't even know what a _usual_ day consists of for her. She sniffs the air as she sits down. The kitchen smells of burnt flesh, and sure enough, the chicken in the chicken salad that's today's meal spent a little too much time in pan to still be tasty. Lydia eats her share anyway, every last bit, carefully avoiding her mother's gaze when she gets up to do the dishes. 

One of these days, she's going to ask. She's going to snap, put her foot down, demand that Lydia either gets a grip and her life back on track, or moves out. Lydia doesn't know what she'd do then, too much planning ahead. 

The thought that she could probably move in with Isaac – he'd let her, no doubt, keeps going on about how the house is too big and he doesn't like to be alone – has her almost dropping the bowl she's been scrubbing. 

 

***

 

Beacon Hills has always been too small for her. Constricting, suffocating, a trap. It's so much worse now, since the looks people throw her have gone from envy and admiration to pity. Small towns have a long memory; everyday's a slow news day here, and the few big headlines that actually happen stay in people's heads. 

It's not going outside she's got a problem with. Lydia isn't afraid. Not anymore. She's less worried about bad things happening to her than she was before. But here she is, at the store – the biggest in town, and yet only about the size of the school gym – shopping for canned soup and instant noodles, and out of the corner of her eyes catches an old woman leaning in to whisper something to her husband while starring as if Lydia's had two heads. Lydia can't her what she's saying, but she doesn't need to. _It's her, isn't it? Lydia Martin? Remember her, the abduction? That Hale guy, the one who escaped from the mental institution, he took her, left her for dead._

Shit like this, that's the reason why she grabs some more cans without looking, leaves the change when she pays, and hurries out of the store. She's not Lydia the head cheerleader and the muster student with the bright future anymore. Now she's Lydia the victim. More than a year has passed, and people still lower their voices whenever she's around, like she's fragile, a walking time bomb, set off with one wrong word. 

To be fair, in the beginning it was like that. 

She should want to leave more than ever now, and she does, but it's become this impossible, inhumanly difficult task. Everything has. Getting out of bed in the morning takes effort and determination, and compared to that college seems like a pipe dream. There's a new scale to everything now, making it that much harder, putting things out of her reach that were so close before. 

The most difficult part of it is that nothing else has changed. Everything around her is the same, the town, the people, but now she sticks out that like a sore thumb. She'd always thought herself special, but now she realizes that hadn't necessarily been true. Ahead of the crowd, yes. Better than average at a number of things, yes. But beyond that, she hadn't been anything else than rest of the town around her. Now she is.

It's a short walk from the store to the cafe, and when she gets there she holds up the bag with the groceries up as soon as she spots Isaac, as if in triumph. He smiles at her and winks – actually winks, the dork – before he points towards the clock above the counter, opens and closes his hand three times. Fifteen more minutes until he's done. 

She waits in her booth. Looks around, grabs the menu to have something to do, and something to hide behind. He doesn't come over to take her order, just looks over with his eyebrows raised and waits for her to shake her head. 

Almost half an hour passes before Isaac hangs up his apron and shoos the last costumer out. That's okay though. She knows he always underestimates the time. 

He smells wonderful when he comes over and gently takes the menu out of her hand, which she'd still been studying like she couldn't already recite the whole thing by heart. She closes her eyes and breathes him, loves how coffee and sweetness cling to his clothes after a day spent in the kitchen and next to the coffee maker. 

“Don't do that,” he says, face scrunching up. “I've been running around all day, I really gotta shower.” 

Lydia stands up and leans in to mock-sniff him again, laughs when he rolls his eyes. “Let's go home, then. I'll join you.” 

 

***

 

They leave a trail of clothes on their way to the bathroom, shedding them as they go. She's got him shirtless before they're even out of the hallway, almost trips them both when she goes to work on his jeans button while still pushing him forward. He catches her, balances them both by propping her up on the wall, kisses her, sucks in a breath when she finally gets both button and zipper to cooperate and maneuvers her hand down his boxers. 

He pulls back to look at her. Their eyes meet and he gets that expression, reverent and besotted, opens his mouth but wises up just in time. He used to say it a lot, stopped when she never said it back. 

To save the moment and get them back on track she pushes her hand a little deeper down his pants, squeezes a little, catches him in another kiss as his head is about to fall back on a groan. She bites his lip when they part, just a bit, doesn't miss the way he twitches in her hand when she does. 

His jeans and underwear don't make it any further than that, left where she works them down his hips. By the time they do get to the bathroom, he's naked. All she's got left to take off are bra and panties, and she does so quickly and unceremoniously before she fishes a condom out of the cupboard next to the sink and hands it to him. What follows is frantic and uncoordinated, up against the wall with her legs around his hips, the tiles still cold and giving her goosebumps while the room fills with steam from the hot water that's pelting down on both of them. It's taking her breath away, literally, makes her gasp for air as she clings to him, their hips moving in the same rhythm, her movements meeting his with the practiced ease of familiarity. Her hands dig into his back when she comes, which is only half on accident, makes him follow quicker. 

They stay like that for a moment, both breathing heavily, her head resting on his shoulder, until he lifts her a little higher so she can get her legs underneath herself and stand on her own, and pulls out. He steps out to dispose of the condom, back in, presses a kiss to her jaw. “Thank you.” 

She moves just out of reach, playfully bats at his head. “You don't have to thank me, you moron, it's not like I didn't get anything out of it.” 

He just grins and hands her the shower gel. 

 

***

 

There's an invisible line between those who suffered at the hand of another, and those who have no idea what that's like. Lydia remembers being the latter, knows that she will never fully be able to shed the former. It's a one-way-street. 

Jackson ditched her two months after the abduction. He was there in the hospital, angry, drunk on the idea of a revenge he would never be able to take. Loud is something he knew how to be. But he couldn't deal with her becoming silent. 

She met Isaac a few weeks later. When she walked up to him in the cafe, told him that she remembered him and asked him what his name was again, he looked around like he expected someone else to stand behind him, as if he was sure she couldn't possibly mean him, before he answered. They fucked for the first time that same week. After three weeks she started to stay the night. Week four marked the first time Isaac screamed them both awake. 

When they met again, she didn't remember the rumors about him that used to circulate at school, about what he may have went through at home – not until she dug out one of her old yearbooks and saw the remainders of a shiner on his photo. All she remembered about him was that he used to be shy and awkward but kind. And she wanted that. She wanted someone who was silent, too, like the person she had become. 

Many times since then, Lydia has thought about whether the source of their attraction to each other lies in the places within them that are hollow. About the line, about how much easier it his to be with someone who's on the same side of it.

 

*** 

 

She sees the flyers for the summer fair on her way to her mother's the next day. It used to be her favorite thing when she was little, and her parents were still married; her father carried her around on his shoulders all day, bought her cotton candy, bribed the shop owner to get her a teddy bear anyway after he failed spectacularly at the shooting range. 

That's how she likes to remember it anyway, no use thinking about how her parents fought and yelled at each other when she wasn't looking. 

She suggests that they could go when her and Isaac climb into bed that night. His eyes narrow, eyebrows creasing together. The worried face. Again. “Are you sure that's a good idea?” 

“Why wouldn't it be? It's a fair. Fairs are fun,” Lydia says, looking away from him to take out her earrings and deposit them on the night stand. “If you don't want to go, I can call someone. Allison might –“ 

“I didn't say that.” He sighs, and she can't see his face, but she can imagine the exasperated expression to go with that just fine. “If you want to, we'll go. I'm just worried that... The crowd, the people, you know.” 

And yes, Lydia is too. She's terrified, actually, at the mere thought. But she went to the summer fair almost every year, since she was a little girl. The last time was just a week or two before she got taken, and she blew Jackson in the horror house, there was dancing and drinking and it's the last time she remembers herself carefree and happy. Peter Hale took enough from her, and maybe she's being stubborn and stupid, but he doesn't get to take this too. She was still in the hospital last year, but this year... No. She's going. If she wants to make her life her own again, she's got to start somewhere. 

But she doesn't say any of that to Isaac. Instead, she shrugs her shoulders. “Yeah, I know. I'll manage.” 

She feels the bed dip, doesn't turn around until he's stopped rummaging around, isn't surprised that he's showing her his back. She lies down, doing the same. 

 

***

 

She sleeps in, wakes to an empty bed and a scribbled note on the bedside table. It says that she doesn't have to tidy up or doing the dishes they didn't get around to last night, he's going to do so later. 

Lydia crumbles it up and sets out to do exactly that. She also puts on laundry. After lunch with her mother she drives straight back here, busies herself with some more of the housework he doesn't want her to do. She waits in the car when she picks him up, texts him to come out, rolls ignores the worried look he gives her as he climbs into the passenger seat. Of course he won't leave it at that, though. 

He buckles his seat belt, switches the head light on, and his eyes narrow. “Lydia, what's wrong? Did something happen?” 

“Nothing's wrong,” she snaps as switches the light off and she starts the car, and he's smart enough not to answer, stares out of the window instead. 

She knows harsh voices could set him off on a bad day, but she doesn't apologize. She's not his fucking mother, is she? If he wants someone to treat him like he's made of glass, he's picked the wrong girlfriend. Friend. Fuck buddy. Whatever they are. 

Neither of them says another word until they're home and out of the car. There's a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach, telling her that she's being unreasonable and that he didn't do anything wrong, no one's making her stay, she's here of her own free will, and that's why she actually conjures up a smile and presses out a “you're welcome” when he thanks her for taking care of the laundry and the dishes and marches off to make them dinner. 

They have Spaghettios on the couch, while watching some stupid singing contest, one-upping each other with ranting about how bad the contestants are and how much the judges exaggerate. Around midnight Isaac falls asleep with his head on her lap, and Lydia's left with a wave of affection so intense she doesn't quite know what to do with it. He trusts her. He's lying there, warm and solid, while she's watching late-night commercials and waiting to drift of as well, doesn't want to get up and wake him in order to turn off the TV. 

 

***

 

All week, Lydia goes back and forth. She's going. She's not. She'll have fun, even if it's the last damn thing she does. She's not even going to try, hide away from everyone like she did all year. 

Friday night arrives too soon and not soon enough. She spends an hour going through her entire wardrobe while at her mom's, ends up packing three different outfits to choose from later. Or not. Depending on what she decides. They agreed to go after she picked him up, with a short stop at home so he can change, and so she's got to get ready before she leaves. 

While she looks at herself in the mirror – smoky eyes, hair done up – it occurs to Lydia that they never really _went out_. No date nights, no parties, no reason to wear anything else than her usual make-up. Isaac doesn't know her like this. And she doesn't know what to do with that. 

She wonders what exactly it is that he wants from her. With Jackson, and the ones who came before him, she knew. Learned it the hard way. The old Lydia was a trophy, an accessory, something to show around and be smug about. Something to be dropped when a better status symbol showed up. At the tender age of fifteen, newly dumped by her second boyfriend for that exact reason, Lydia vowed that she wouldn't allow that to happen ever again. 

Now she's lost her shine, and yet she's never seen any of the others look at her the way Isaac does. But she can't do the same for him. She can't love him back, and she's afraid that the part of her that would have been able to died that night on the football field. And Isaac doesn't push. 

Lydia juts her chin forward, lowers her lashes again for final swipe with the mascara brush. But she's not frightened. She was, right until she got in here and started dolling herself up like she hasn't in over a year, but now she's perfectly calm. She steps out of the bathroom, throws her hair back and smooths down her skirt. This, she remembers how to do: put on a brave face and show the world the side of her she wants it to see. 

All she's got left to do is make herself believe it too.


End file.
